ESA Members And SOPA: Where They Stand

EDIT: With the withdrawal of both SOPA and PIPA in the last few days, and the collapse of support for the bills within the US Houses, the entertainment industries’ attempt to control the internet is thwarted for the while. It is at this point that the ESA have chosen to declare they no longer support the bills that aren’t really there to support any more. I’m leaving this list up mostly to show you who couldn’t be bothered to get back to us with a comment.

Here’s a guide to ESA members and their current positions on the Stop Online Piracy Act. RPS has called for all members to publicly denounce the dangerous and censorious bill. If we know a company’s position, we’ll state it below. If we’re waiting to hear back from them, you’ll see just “Contacted”.

Undeclared. According to Digital Trends, Capcom told them that they support SOPA. However, since then Capcom have issued a statement explaining the rather woolly position that the ESA represents them, but they don’t have a position themselves. I’m pretty sure that’s meant to work the other way around. They also get very pissy that people interpreted their saying that the ESA represents them as meaning they agree with the ESA stance, calling it “bad journalism”. Think they might want to turn that pissy attitude inward there, and think a bit more carefully. And have the balls to say what they think as a company. Because statements like this:

“At Capcom, we’re game makers, not legislators. We do not have an internal stance on this particular issue and are not planning to. We’ll get back to making games. Thanks.”

“We oppose the passage of the SOPA bill as currently drafted. We think the White House statement points in a constructive way to problems with the current legislation, the need to fix them, and the opportunity for people on all sides to talk together about a better path forward.”

Against. Nival have gotten back to us with a statement explaining that they do not support the SOPA, and saying they’ve contacted the ESA to inform them too.

“Nival does not support SOPA, despite a deep understanding of the struggle against piracy in the games industry. Unfortunately, SOPA could do more harm to Internet freedom than good to fight piracy. We recognize the issues our partners in the online press have with this legislation. We will continue to be anti-piracy but are also anti-SOPA.”

Against. “NVIDIA wasn’t consulted by ESA in formulating their position on SOPA. Our position is this: we oppose piracy, as it hurts our game-developer partners. However, we do not support SOPA. We don’t believe it is the right solution to the problem. We remain committed to working to address this problem in a constructive and fair manner.”

In the process of contacting. Although it’s worth noting that Warner Music Group and Warner Music Nashville are listed supporting the bill, and that overall owners, Time Warner, are one of the big funders here.